Origineel interview in het Frans op: Subversiv vertaald naar het Engels, onder voorbehoud van mogelijke vertaalfouten.
1 Franche-Echos: Mister Faye, what was your part in the founding of the New Right or GRECE?
Guillaume Faye: From 1970 to 1986 I was first an adherent, and then one of the directors of the association, GRECE, which was reputedly one of the intellectual centres of the "New Right" or the "extreme right" depending on the names given to it by the journalists involved, although I would prefer the term " European identitarian nationalism". I was even GRECE's number two, as "Secretary for Study and Research", at the time. Today, this so-called "New Right", and GRECE, are no more than the shadows of their former selves and have abandoned the identitarian struggle. They have abandoned any idea of defending the European identity and
become fake rebels, avid to be recognised by the system (though vainly so), totally aligned with the positions of the left wing and of Monde Diplomatique, positions such as : islamophile, pro-third-world, silence in radio broadcasts concerning immigration (the avoidance strategy - avoiding above all anything that might shock anyone), anti-capitalism, ineffective anti-americanism, hate-filled anti-zionism, etcetera.
2 France-Echos: Besides, you were a great humorous journalist, notably in the Filipacchi Group ... in the eighties, then you vanished. Is it true that your comrades in GRECE had something to do with your demonisation?
Guillaume Faye: It was a mixture of things ; between 1980 and 1986 I published a number of political and ideological books (1). The situation was quite different from what it is today and my ideas have evolved considerably. Then, from 1986 onwards, seized by what the Romans called the vis comica, I plunged into show business : radio, TV, cinema, music, specialist press, etc. I did all this under pseudonyms, obviously. I also wrote some rather light books (2). This period
taught me a lot, because, unlike the Paris intellectuals who see everything through their readers' clubs, I got into the habit of going to the heart of things. In 1998, driven by some internal demon ... I went back to the task of writing my ideological books and giving conferences. Then, in 1999, some little ill-wishers, who could only have come from the old milieu in which I had been previously, discreetly told my employers who I really was, purely out of jealousy. These latter then stopped giving me any work. One mustn't, after all, feed the Devil ... To get away from all this I founded my own review, I Have Understood All - which in its new format is now called Alarm Signal - and like a stakhanovite I multiplied my books, articles, and ideological conferences.
3 France-Echos: Since your return to the centre of debate in the circles of right wing thought you have not ceased denouncing the pro-Arab, anti-Semitic, pro-Islamist, even Third-World-ist, turn of the New Right and of your erstwhile friends in GRECE.
What is it all about?
Guillaume Faye: I parted company with GRECE and the New Right in 1986, because even then I could quite clearly perceive this ideological development. Since then polemic with them has never ceased. One important detail : most of the original guiding spirits of GRECE eventually came to the same conclusions as I had, and left the organisation, which is nowadays reconstituted solely around the writer Alain de Benoist and his court, whose positions are absolutely the same as those of Dieudonné and the insane Iranian Mullahs. I note that the aforementioned Alain de Benoist, forgetting all concepts of honour, has gone so far as to describe me in the Italian press as a "super-racist" (Area, Review, May 2000) ... He has chosen his camp, that of the politically correct, the vulgar herd, the poor man's analysis, the tactics of the courtesan (?) And the poor fellow doesn't even get invited to Paris salons or readers' clubs. It seems to me - and I shall return to this - that these people have the mentality of collaborators. As if they are anticipating the arrival of their future masters. They have the mentality of dhimmis, of "submitters".
Nowadays, I work in close association with the old members of the New Right who quit, like me, and who have created their own networks and circles of cultural and ideological influence, throughout Europe, in Russia, in Portugal, in the USA, and in Canada. And I work, of course, on new books.
4 France-Echos: Have you found, in these new circles with which you work, or in the Front National, which has invited you on various occasions to give speeches, any
hostility against the Jews, any remnants of anti-Semitism?
Guillaume Faye: No, that isn't really the problem. Anti-Judaism (to use a term I prefer to 'anti-Semitism') melts like snow in the sun across a great part of what is known as the "extreme right". Of course, there are significant pockets of resistance ; one cannot defeat the long anti-Jewish tradition in a day. And there is also a segment of this "extreme right", to which GRECE belongs, which has turned to a violent anti-zionism, coupled with an acute Palestinophilia (I shall return to this). However, this ideological current has become more and more isolated in the movement I am speaking of, quite simply because of the massive threat posed by immigration into France ... Under these conditions, anti-Judaism is forgotten, the Jew no longer seems like a menace at all. In the circles in which I move, I never hear any anti-Jewish invective. I even come across people (as one did in the sixties) who approve and support the "Israeli Right". I have tried to understand (and my conclusions regarding this are finally, little by little, becoming shared) that anti-Judaism is a politically obselete, useless, overtaken position, even when it is disguised as anti-zionism. We are no longer living in the times of the Dreyfuss Affair. Besides, the anti-Judaists have never escaped from their own terrible contradiction : they seem to despise the Jews, yet pretend that these latter control the world. So, does this mean that
they think the Jews are a superior race, or not? Anti-Judaism is a form of political schizophrenia, a sort of inverted philo-Semitism, the expression of a ressentiment [envy, inferiority complex - RB]. I don't judge anti-Judaism from a moral point of view ; after all, one can be frustrated and detest whomever one likes. I never mix the moral and the political. But my position is the same as Nietzsche's : hating the Jews serves no purpose, it is a politically stupid and unproductive passion.
5 France-Echos: A number of small extreme right groups who have read your work accuse you of being prejudicially pro-American and "neo-zionist". Why is that, do you think?
Guillaume Faye: Those people are hemiplegic, in addition to being professional liars. To begin with, I have never been "prejudicially pro-American" . One has only to read my essay "Global Coup d'État, an Essay on the New American Imperialism" (which deconstructs the ideology of the neo-conservatives) to see that. My position, being strategic rather than manichean, is incomprehensible to these fanatics. I am neither an anti-American nor a pro-American, but a European nationalist. The USA is in no way the Great Satan, the number one enemy, but, depending on circumstances and according to its strategy as a state, it may be an adversary,
a competitor, or even one day an ally. The anti-American dogma (which I call OHAA, "obsessional-hysterican anti-Americanism") is impolitic, like all dogmas. I'm sorry, but I prefer McDonalds' to mosques, pom-pom girls to shuttered, battered, violated women, American universities to obscurantist Islamist madrassas, etcetera.
Regarding zionism, these people who call me a "neo-zionist" are labelling me like this quite simply because I am not hysterically anti-zionist, as they are, and because I can feel no sympathy nor interest in the "Palestinian cause". How can I defend a Muslim people (who claim to be being "martyred", though I dispute this), at the very moment that Islam undertakes the conquest of Europe? In what way does the "zionism" of the Jewish state threaten Europe? It is my fierce, defensive opposition to Islam, and to the Arabo-Muslim strategy, which explains
why these people, who have become infatuated Arabophiles and Islamophiles, call me a "neo-zionist".
They cannot bear the fact that I refuse to give the requisite free passage to their "anti-zionism". How can I be a "zionist" when I am not Jewish? And how could I become an "anti-zionist" when at no time has the zionist ideology (unlike Islamism, communism, leftism, rights-of-man-ism, or masochistic post-conciliar christianism) attacked or threatened either directly or remotely
the idea I defend, which is the maintenance of European identity? In what way would the disappearance of Israel help my cause? To think of the Jewish state as an enemy is geopolitical idiocy for European identitarians.
The current GRECE of Alain de Benoist (which has nothing in common with the original GRECE) the little "national-revolutionary" groups inspired by the fanatical Christian Bouchet, and the camarilla of "extreme right" militants who have converted to Islam, all of these being closely interconnected, are really totally aligned to the positions of the Iranian government, which fascinates them as a snake fascinates sparrows. For them, I am obviously the absolute
enemy.
This is how I interpret their tortured reasoning : to begin with, there is a visceral hatred (which needs psychoanalytic explanation) for everything Israeli, American, or zionist. (Note, I have not claimed that in every case this is a camouflaged form of neurotic anti-Judaism, analogous to the paranoic and dream like anti-Judaism of the Third Reich, but in the last analysis, in some cases,
it is so). Secondly, given their obsessional anti-zionism and anti-Americanism, they arrive through the force of passion and simplistic thinking at Islamophilia, Arabophilia, and pro-immigrationism. They finish up aligning themselves with the views of Dieudonné (whom they are actively courting), and in the circles of the pro-Arab extreme left. Add to this, a third-world-ist, anti-capitalist rhetoric, derived entirely from the neo-marxist vulgate, of which Alain de Benoist has been for a long time the exemplar on the "extreme right". What I find really tragic in these intellectual contortions, is that these pseudo-European identitarians, because of their anti-zionism (and in some cases, anti-Judaism) completely sacrifice their defense of the European identity and hurl themselves into the arms of Islam, pro-Arabism, and third-world-ism.
They focus all their fire on zionism, blinded by their hatred. The destruction, through immigration, of Europe? For them, this is inevitable anyway, and of secondary importance. The essential thing is the struggle against the hydra of zionism and the American Satan, shoulder to shoulder with militant Islam. They masturbate in ecstacy over the declarations of Ahmadinejad.
The problem is that their new "friends" regard them as collaborators, and despise them as traitors. I do not envy their future lot. I suspect they look forward to the Islamisation of Europe, its "future". They want to be on the winning side. They would love to be cosseted dhimmis ("submitters"). But they won't be. Another thing, these people hope to conveniently forget their
politically incorrect pasts and to forge for themselves phony passports as "anti-racists" (they hope in vain, though) - they hope to appear as the greatest friends of Islam, of the Arabs, of the Palestinian cause, of the poor third world, oppressed by the "American-zionist capital bloc". All this isn't just intellectually bankrupt, it needs one term above all - cowardice.
6 France-Echos: What does zionism mean to you?
Guillaume Faye: Zionism is the affirmation of the re-installation of a people in a land which they consider to be their own. Zionism is also a highly composite ideology : it talks of aliya, which means the "return" of the dispersed Jews, but also, and right from its inception, it talks of a new form of society. I know this subject quite well because I am preparing a work, which will make a
certain amount of noise in the "milieu", which will be called "The New Jewish Question". Zionism, which is a very recent element in Jewish history, theorised at the end of the nineteenth century by Herzl and Buber (who did not arrive at the same positions, hence the "Israeli compromise") is the attempt (successful, uniquely in history) to reconstitute a Jewish state, in fact the mythical Kingdom of David, starting from the Diaspora, in order to escape from
persecution and renew the post-Mosaic tradition.
One should note that the religious Jews were against this project (and this opposition still exists) because it seemed to envisage the construction of a profane state entity. The zionist project is an absolutely unique case in the annals of "archeofuturism" (this is the name of one of my books,
"Archeofuturism"), that is to say, the reconstruction, the renaissance, the resurrection and the projection into the future of a political form past but not forgotten. The reconstitution of the national and state language, Hebrew, has no historical parallel. It is a major act of political voluntarism. The zionist movement has a "saga" which, from my point of view as a non-Jewish observer, corresponds to the values which I defend : attachment to a land, to the lineage
of one's people, to its traditions, to its historical perpetuation, to fidelity to one's lines of descent, to ethnic homogeneity and collective will. Zionism therefore constitutes an example of the creation of a political and state form for a people, which is new, and which should inspire the re-founders of European identitarianism. However, let it be understood, although I applaud its
principles, zionism is not my own cause, because I do not belong to the Jewish people. Quite simply, I cannot see what phantasm should cause me to oppose it...
Now, I think (and I take no pleasure at all in this) that the zionist project and the existence of Israel are menaced by the demographic balance, in favour of the Muslims, also by the extension of a terrorist war which might provoke the flight of the élites, and also probably a reduction in international support for Israel. The great mistake that was made, was to grant Israeli nationality to the Muslim minority which remained after 1948, instead of organising a clear and
thorough-going partition. This mistake was the result of the "humanistic" notions of Buber, and of his famous book "I and Thou". One last thing : people constantly parrot to me the official line, that the Jewish state has conducted itself in an ignoble, persecutory manner towards the unhappy "Palestinians".
Even if this were true, it isn't my problem. However, in addition, I think it is an extreme exaggeration. It is in the political interest of European identitarians that the state of Israel survives. I shall talk about this in my forthcoming book. My position will shock the retarded ones. So much the worse for them.
7 France-Echos: Is it true that you have spoken at Senate conferences, at the invitation of the very influential zionist club of Jean Mandelbaum, a circle which has also invited speeches from Chirac, Spiner, and most of the more famous French zionists?
Guillaume Faye: Absolutely true. In particular, I explained to them that the Jewish intellectuals and political men who have welcomed immigration and Islamisation, in the name of a delirious vision of "anti-racism", have been irresponsible. The public agrees with me. I respond to all the invitations I receive. I have spoken before the FN, the MNR, the Rotary Club, the PS branch of the 15th arrondissement, the Republican Party in Washington, the Rodina Party in the Moscow Duma, the Breton Party Adsav, the University of St Petersburg, and many French, Belgian, German, Italian, and Spanish cultural assocations, and other circles in France, Germany, Italy, etcetera. I am a free electron, I affirm my own ideas without any complexes. I have even been invited by certain Islamist circles, who wanted to know the thinking behind my anti-Islamist positions. I spoke alongside old friends from the "New Right" who had converted to Islam, and alongside obsessional anti-zionists. I sensed that the Muslims had a lot more respect for me than they had for these obsequious, cowardly converts. I explained to them that they were in the process of invading Europe, that I was not fooled by their strategy, that my duty was to fight them, and that - I am sorry to have to say - I have succeeded in completely cutting the threads of their propaganda for the "Palestinian cause" and their fable of "Islam, religion
of peace". I explained to them that my task was to oppose their Jihad, that I was not deceived by their Qur'anic hypocrisy, that they could do what they liked in their own homelands but not in mine, that they should not take me for an idiot by talking about the "zionist menace", etc. They heard me out very courteously, in complete silence, quite discomforted, attentive, and, at the end, an Algerian intellectual told me with a big grin, "Luckily for us, most of the French do not possess your lucidity, and don't know us the way you do."
8 France-Echos: Do you accept the label "extreme right", and how do you explain your sulphurous, extremist image?
Guillaume Faye: The expression "extreme right" is blurred and lacking in rigour, in terms of political semantics. My case is a bit special. I created my own ideology, which rather upsets everyone, because it offends the conformist Islamophiles and the prejudiced anti-zionists, both pro-US and the anti-US, even in the area of economics and geopolitics.
I have tried to create a new ideology. I wish people would read me, and study my texts, before leaping to conclusions. In fact, I discomfort all camps, I offend their senses of etiquette. I am above all myself, but the fact that people treat me as an "extreme right ideologist" doesn't bother me at all. I am not like those old crabs which try to hide themselves behind their own claws (?) So why my sulphurous "extremist" image? Quite simply, because I attack frontally, in my writings and my public conferences, the Islamisation of Europe, the invasive immigration, the neo-totalitarianism of the ruling ideology, the reduction in freedom of expression, and the general decadence of this end-of-cycle civilisation. And because all this has brought me certain lawsuits and condemnations, it is normal that the bien-pensants should consider me an
"extremist". The term "extremist" today means the same thing it meant in Stalin's USSR : a dissident who speaks the truth.
9 France-Echos: You have probably heard about the scandal unleashed by the astounding article written by an old GRECE member who has now apparently become politically correct, Joseph Macé-Scaron, now a journalist for Marianne, promoting a sulphurous, hate-filled book which calls all the thinkers of the right, like Alexandre del Valle and Guy Millière, who are allies of the Jewish community, or of rightist zionist Jews like Goldnagel or Kupfer (Likud) - "Fachos". What do you make of this, and what can you tell us about this astonishing accuser, Macé-Scaron?
Guillaume Faye: With regard to this article in Marianne signed by Mr. Joseph Macé-Scaron, one passage of which claims or suggests that Mr. Alexandre Del Valle belonged to the aforementioned movement or was ideologically close to it, I can state, quite independently of my opinions of Mr. Del Valle, and even given a certain disagreement with him, that he never belonged, either closely or even remotely, to the "New Right", or to GRECE, or to any "extreme right" organisation at all, nor did he ever take part in any of our meetings during the relevant period. I would have known of anything of this sort, since I was right at the centre of this family of thinkers, and I knew every one of its "intellectuals" perfectly.
Mr. Del Valle was never involved with us, nor was he ever asked to debate on our behalf, nor to write for us. On the contrary, at the conference cited by Macé-Scaron, he provoked some lively reactions in the chamber when he violently attacked the ideas put forward on behalf of GRECE by his opponent on the right, whose name as it happens was Champetier (a man who has himself, moreover, since left that organisation himself). I attest that, like Taguieff, who has since been lynched for similar reasons in Le Monde, del Valle argued against and not for the New Right, which changes the whole context, since debating against someone in no way suggests that one shares his ideas or solidarises with him.
Whenever Del Valle has appeared in debate against the intellectuals of the neo-pagan New Right, whether they are from GRECE or not, he has always vehemently attacked the "anti-semitism and anti-zionism" of the obsessional pro-Arabists in this movement, of whom I spoke earlier. I can attest to the truth of this, which is completely different to the allegations of this inferior journalist, Macé-Scaron - I take no positions on Mr. Del Valle himself.
On the other hand, the accuser, Joseph Macé-Scaron, who it seems, wants to make us forget his own past when he accuses certain others of having taken part in conferences with people supposedly close to the New Right, is in a very poor position to attack, especially, Goldnagel or Del Valle, since he himself was well and truly an adherent of, a partisan for, GRECE, and in fact one of its most fervent militants and directors between 1978 and 1985! Macé-Scaron worked
during this entire period (in a "permanent" capacity) in the "press corps" of the New Right (GRECE) after having been initiated, in the company of his friend the journalist Thierry Deransart, according to the pagano-christian right of chivalry (??? - RB), during a conclave at which I myself was present, along with various others. His sponsor and initiator, who is still one of my best friends and will certainly support my statement, is now a cadre of the MNR (ex-FN).
Another of my close friends, who was at the time secretary-general of GRECE (and who left the organisation for reasons similar to my own) could equally bear witness against the grave accusations of Mr. Macé-Scaron. There could be no more astonishing accuser than Mr. Macé-Scaron, who was himself a product of the "school of journalism" that we created within GRECE, which at the time allowed us to infiltrate Figaro Magazine, two of whose successive editors, Mssrs. Valla and Plunkett, were also members of the directorate of GRECE, and which employed in addition a significant number of other members of our association and our
movement. I recall perfectly how, within the framework of this "school of journalism", I helped to form the ideology, the writing skills, and the propagandist capacity of Mr. Macé-Scaron, who was a very apt pupil ; he started his virtuoso career in journalism by going to work for Figaro Magazine, entirely thanks to GRECE.
Subsequently, like many other journalists who, thanks to GRECE and the New Right, began their professional careers at Figaro, at Valeurs Actuelles, or elsewhere, he has tried to make us forget this inconvenient geneology and has - publicly - changed his views. This is human enough, who can blame him for it, in a time when one needs to show a white paw [this is a French idiom related to proverbs about rabbits - RB] to pursue one's career?
Having said all that, the ideas circulating within GRECE today, I repeat, are not at all the strong identitarian positions (what the journalists call "extreme right" ideas) which it held when Mr. Macé-Scaron was a member and "young hopeful".
What is unacceptable is that Mr. Macé-Scaron, like a common informer, lyingly accuses others of being members of a movement in which he himself took part, and proceeds to demonise this family of thinkers, which itself put his foot on the stairway to success ... I should add that I am perfectly willing to give details to support my testimony, if need arises ... and other directing spirits from the GRECE of the period should be equally ready to confound Mr. Joseph Macé-Scaron.
10 France-Echos: Did Joseph Macé-Scaron maintain and secret relationships with the extreme rightists, neo-pagans, or New Right?
Guillaume Faye: How should I know? My guess would be, no. He must have needed to do everything possible to regain his political virginity and conceal his "traceability". Just like many others, now well ensconced in the media and in business, thanks to our movement, whose entryism, at the time (1975-1985), was extremely effective. But I don't reproach him for this break with his past, not at all, as I say again.
Everyone has the right to change. Ingratitude is blameworthy, but it is not unforgivable. On the other hand, Mr. Macé-Scaron has committed a very serious error (a stupidity?) in howling with the wolves and soiling the name of this family, which once was his, and which helped him so much.
You see, I know this scene by heart. I could give you a list of at least thirty people of both sexes who were deeply involved with the New Right and GRECE in its heyday (and even after that) whom we formed, helped, found places for, to a greater or lesser extent, or who were our militants, whom we regarded as permanent members. They are all kept nice and snug in my records, which are extremely well maintained. They all have splendid careers, some very celebrated by the media. But I shall never reveal their past lives, this would be a dishonourable betrayal. On the other hand ... if one (male) of them, or one (female) of them, starts spitting in the soup, spitting on our ideas, spitting on our movement and demonising us in public, or tries to harm us by any other means, I shall only be putting things back in their proper perspective if I
reveal their pasts. I do not ask of them courage, but merely silence. As for the struggle, I vow that I shall continue it.
11 France-Echos: Regarding the central question of revisionism : is it true that GRECE and the New Right in that period were by a large majority, revisionist, and/or anti-Semitic? This seems to have shocked Joseph Macé-Scaron at the time.
Guillaume Faye: I left GRECE in 1986. Revisionism was never the order of the day. In fact, no anti-Judaism could have been expressed then. Simply, from a sociological or socio-historical point of view, that whole milieu was saturated by an atmosphere which clearly was not favourable to the Jews, even though quite a few members of GRECE were of Jewish origin. One must recall that the Jewish-zionist right was very hostile to us. In 1979 at the Palais des Congrès de Paris our annual conference was attacked by the OJD, the Jewish Defense Organisation, which resulted in a great many injuries on both sides. This did not happen by accident. The ideology we were expressing (and the ideological climate was very different from today's) greatly displeased these Jewish circles, in particular Betar. The reasons for this hostility were not especially serious or coherent, but anyway this was the period in which Mr. Macé-Scaron belonged to GRECE, and he could hardly not know the grounds on which the Jewish circles opposed us.
12 France-Echos: There are rumours that Joseph Macé-Scaron, who never ceases to assert that his grand-mother was Jewish, made this genealogy up in order to offset the effects of his sulphurous past and his right wing "facho" friends like Deransard. What do you say to that?
Guillaume Faye: I never give any credence to "rumours". In any case, at the time that Mr. Macé-Scaron was a member of GRECE, he never mentioned this mysterious "Jewish grand-mother". Had he done so, this would have been no obstacle to his membership. In parenthesis, I find the term "facho" polemical and without any socio-political validity. Consider my own case : the body of ideological thought I have put together over the last thirty years has no relationship to "fascism", for the simple reason that I am not acquainted with fascist political doctrine, and thus cannot be inspired by the thought of the period. I build upon new and contemporary principles. To return to Mr. Macé-Scaron, one thing is certain : he is trying, like a hunted hare, to make us forget about his past involvements. He would do better to keep quiet. You know the Chinese proverb : "Don't pull the tail of a sleeping tiger."
13 France-Echos: On a related issue, can you confirm that a good many media personalities a lot more sulphurous than you have been favoured, even though they spent time in more right wing circles than you did? Is it true that not speaking of immigration, and not attacking Islam, are the secrets to this sort of favour? Could one single out Karl Zéro in this connection?
Guillaume Faye: This isn't the secret of getting ahead, but it helps. Karl Zéro was never a GRECE member, but he wrote some articles and did some comic strips which were politically incorrect in the satirical review "Jalons", run by his brother Bruno Thélène, in the '80s. [Jalons are poles used as landmarks - RB]. As it happens I also wrote for this review, which had an "ultra-rightist" editorial committee.
Now this media star never ceases denouncing his old friends and the "extreme right" in general, in order to clear himself. I suspect him of being one of those who tried to get me into trouble and get me fired from the "mainstream media". His case is similar to that of Macé-Scaron. He lost a court case against an old member of GRECE whom he had accused in the press of being what you call a "facho". I have all this in my files. In any case, Karl Zéro isn't a very luminous personality.
13 France-Echos: Karl Zéro wasn't a member of GRECE, then? Are there any other anti-semites or fachos who are now getting ahead, and who are they?
Guillaume Faye: I repeat, Karl Zéro was never a member, although he was part of the New Right "movement", the "outer circle" if you like. He came to informal gatherings, soirées. He rapidly realised he had to steer clear of us. Once again, I would not accuse anyone who was part of this movement at the time of having been an "anti-semite". The question simply never came up! Those (female) and those (male) who are now "singled out for stardom" are so because they have managed to "show the white paw" [see above - RB], to espouse the vulgate of the hegemonic ideology, and - above all - because they have carefully camouflaged their dissident pasts. This past will never be revealed to their masters, by either me or my friends, unless, obviously, the parties concerned give themselves up to campaigns and calumnies against us.
14 France-Echos: What do you think about Israel, its future, and the future of Europe in the face of islam?
Guillaume Faye: I have already answered these questions. Israel is principally endangered by its own demographic weakness in the face of the hostile Muslims - much more by this than by the projected Iranian atomic bomb. I do not consider the state of Israel to be hostile or dangerous and I think that "anti-Israelism" is a grave geostrategic error for European identitarians. One of the strengths of Israel, among others, is its very high level of science and research (4.9 % of its GDP is devoted to research and development, the highest percentage in the world).
For Europe, an "alliance with the Arabs" is a dramatic non-starter, and, like all "third-world-ism", supremely naïve. As for Islam, Europe is now facing the third attempt, historically, since the eighth century - and doubtless the most serious attempt - on the part of this "religion-civilisation" to conquer it and transform it into Eurabia. Europe is at the same time confronted by an uncontrolled wave of immigration which is practically exchanging its population for another. To divert one's attention onto a fantasmatic anti-zionism, and a primary anti-americanism, is the worst possible mistake one could make in politics, which Macchiavelli condemned : allowing oneself to be ruled by one's passions rather than by cold and clear reason.
15 France-Echos: Is the USA an adversary, or an enemy, or rather an ally, of Europe, in the face of this Islamic colonisation?
Guillaume Faye: The USA is not a single homogeneous entity, this is something neither the anti-Americans nor the pro-Americans seem to comprehend. Certain forces in Washington (the "neo-cons") have tried to play the Islamic card to weaken both Europe and Russia. Unhappily for them, they have stirred up and attracted Islamic terrorism and have allowed themselves to fall into the trap of Iraq.
Washington's current policies are stupid and unskillful. However, from their own point of view, the directing intelligences of Washington have always tried to obstruct the continental unity of Europe and Russia (what I call "Eurosiberia").
Meanwhile, there are new ideological forces in the USA, with which I am in close contact, who consider the restoration of European power indispensable, and who believe completely that we are at the onset of a clash of civilisations which will oppose the North to the South, globally (to put it schematically, and whether we welcome it or not) - even if this view shocks the intellectuals of the system, who mistake their wishes for realities. These new forces also
consider (even those who are anti-Jewish Americans) that a historic compromise and a fundamental alliance with the Jewish élites is necessary, to bring under control both uncontrolled immigration and Islamism. They are finally beginning to understand (like their counterparts in Europe) that the anti-Jewish aversion is a complete non-starter.
I have always written, and I write today, that the USA may be an adversary but it is not an enemy. It is essential to convince the American élites of the need for an ethno-political alliance of all the peoples of European origin. I should add that the arrogance and imperialism of American rulers has but one cause : the weakness, the renunciation, the softness, of the European rulers. As for the Jews, even if they are "a people apart", they manifestly constitute a people in their own right, and they should be members of this alliance. Clearly, they need to make efforts on their own behalf. I would use a term, which I repeat , "historic compromise".
16 France-Echos: You who made your mea culpa to have said Arab Europe-World formerly even combat, would you say Israel-Occident-Europe today even combat?
Guillaume Faye: Carl Schmitt, the famous German political scientist, whom Raymond Aron has made known and translated for the French, said that it is not you who choose your enemy, but it is your enemy who chooses you as his enemy, whether you like it or not. The fact that the Islamist ideology (which benefits from the enormous sensationalism of its approach to the masses and which does not trouble itself with the subtleties of the Parisian intelligentsia) talks of "Crusaders and Zionists" as its principal enemy, should make us reflect. I shall answer your
question and my answer will draw its inspiration from my master, Niccolo Macchiavelli. First off - I do not like the term, "the West", because it apparently excludes Russia, and because of its superficiality (why "the West"?) The realpolitik of the twenty first century will have to attempt to regroup all the peoples of European origin, whose interests are convergent and who confront
the same menaces, whatever their continent of settlement may be. The Jewish state should join this regrouping, and should place itself under its protection, integrated without being assimilated, but without pretending to a leading rôle - with an absolute guarantee that anti-Judaism is an obselete sentiment, and a counter-productive one, which will be allowed no further influence. In any case, to deny to the Jews their place within European civilisation (as understood in its large-scale, multi-continental sense) has always seemed to me to be the
purest delirium, a result of ignorance and of bad faith. In the twenty first century, Israel will no longer be at the centre of the world's preoccupations, because the world will be less and less "Western-centred". (The Chinese and the Indians have very little historical sense of a "Jewish Question"). Many Jews consider themselves to belong to a "central people", the famous "salt of the earth". This sentiment needs to be toned down a bit.
All the same, Israel is today one of the primary locations for the struggle against the common enemy. I consider the Internet texts of the neo-rightist pro-Islamist groups which exalt the "martyrdom" of a Belgian of European descent, who converted to Islam and blew herself up in Israel, taking various innocents with her, to be absolutely pathetic. In terms of first principles,
what do I have to do with this war between Jews and Muslims, between Israelis and Palestinians? Who is right, who is wrong? It is not my problem, except that ... yes, except that in my opinion the perpetuation and strengthening of the state of Israel is a vital priority for all Europeans. The destruction of Israel would present Islam with an open door to the conquest of the whole of Europe. In brief, I entirely support the state of Israel, while deploring the clumsiness and soft-heartedness of certain of its current rulers (contaminated by the
humanitarianism of Buber). If I were in their place, I wouldn't wait for American permission before hitting the Iranian nuclear sites.
17 France-Echos: The positions you express here may provoke an earthquake in your own circle? People might call you a "Jew-lover"?
Guillaume Faye: I am absolutely not a "Jew-lover". I think of the Jews as allies, as partakers
in European civilisation, with a very particular and original status as "people apart" (this does not mean "superior"), and all this is something very different from being a "Jew-lover". But I have always felt a certain repugnance for anti-Judaism ; not because it seems to me "immoral", but because it seems to me quite simply useless, debauched, infantile, politically self-contradictory, and out of date. My whole purpose is to cause earthquakes, to make people think, to dislodge their prejudices, and to make their minds evolve. To free my milieu from counter-productive anti-Judaism and anti-zionism - with which it is still imprinted - seems to me to be a strategic necessity. This fact should be taken into account, dispassionately. To me, the Jews are themselves, proud of their interior truth, guardians of their own secrets. The Jewish community ought to reflect actively on the pertinence of my theories, and ought to decide upon its own ideological evolution. My forthcoming essay, "The New Jewish Question" will clarify a lot of obscure aspects of all this. I am engaged in digging holes in the ground, in order to bring about the eruption of volcanoes.
NOTES:
Works written between 1980 and 1986 : "The System For Killing The Peoples" (translated into Italian), "The New Ideological Joys", "Organic Man", "The New Consumer Society", "Sex And Ideology", "The West As Decline", "New Discourse On The European Nation".
Works written between 1986 and 1999 : "The Guide To Invective", "The Abbreviated Guide To Seduction", "Extraterrestrials From A To Z".
